MER - Desperately attempting to save his regime and continue collecting large sums of money for himself and cronies, especially from the Europeans at this point, Arafat twists and turns largely to U.S. and Israeli dictate. Sooner or later he is leading his people to civil war. As for "the State" he is being pushed by his former nemesis to declare -- for it is the kind of State and regime that will benefit the U.S. and Israel far more than the Palestinian people -- Arafat is trying, but so far his own people are successfully resisting JERUSALEM (AP - 28 December) - Ignoring Yasser Arafat's truce order, two members of the militant Islamic Jihad group on Friday attacked an Israeli army patrol in the Gaza Strip in a failed suicide mission. Troops killed one assailant and found remnants of an explosives belt near his body.

Also Friday, Israel lifted a blockade of Bethlehem, the second West Bank town where travel restrictions were eased this week in response to a recent drop in violence. Palestinian attacks on Israelis have decreased sharply since Dec. 16, when Arafat called for an end to attacks against Israelis, saying he has always denounced suicide bombings.

However, Israel's army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, on Friday dismissed Arafat's crackdown on militants, saying the Palestinian Authority itself is "infected by terror from head to toe and does everything to disrupt our lives, and to bring terrorism to our doorsteps."

The Palestinian Cabinet demanded after its weekly session Friday that the United States send its special mediator, retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, back to the region as soon as possible to oversee confidence-building measures that would lead to an eventual resumption of peace talks.

Israel TV's Channel Two said Zinni was expected to return to the Middle East by next week if there is no major outburst of violence. Zinni left the region in mid- December, after a failed three-week truce mission that saw a sharp increase in violence. The U.S. State Department would not comment on Zinni's possible return.

Later Friday, Secretary of State Colin Powell called Arafat to discuss the security situation, Arafat's office said. Powell welcomed Arafat's arrests of militants and said he would urge Israel to ease restrictions on Palestinian areas, the Palestinians said. He also assured Arafat that the United States will continue to sponsor peace talks and push for their renewal.

Friday's thwarted attack in Gaza was the first major attempt by Islamic militants to challenge Arafat's truce efforts.

Hamas, the larger of the two main Islamic militant groups, has said it would suspend suicide attacks in Israel, though not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while the smaller Islamic Jihad never made a commitment to halt violence.

Friday's pre-dawn attack took place along a road near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in the central Gaza Strip, said the Israeli commander in the area, Lt. Col. Erez Katz.

Two assailants carrying two anti-tank missiles, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and ammunition fired on Israeli soldiers on patrol in the area, Katz said. Troops returned massive fire. At daybreak, soldiers found the decapitated body of one of the attackers and remnants of an explosives belt, Katz said.

The second attacker fled the scene, the officer said.

In a message, videotaped before the attack and aired later on the Lebanese TV station Al Manar, assailant Mahmoud Burai, 23, from the Gaza refugee camp of Jebaliya, said he was preparing for a suicide mission.

Islamic Jihad said in a statement released in Beirut that it remained committed to "Jihad (holy war) and resistance, using all means and in any part of our nation Palestine, until the occupation ends."

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinian police closed an Islamic Jihad office Friday and two members of the group were arrested and their weapons confiscated, Palestinian security officials said.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Israeli soldiers shot from a watch tower toward the refugee camp in Rafah, seriously injuring a woman walking in the street, Palestinian security officials said. Doctors at a local hospital were trying to remove the bullet lodged in the chest. The army said it was unaware of Israeli fire in the area.

Israeli troops lifted a blockade of Bethlehem on Friday to allow free travel in and out of the town. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that Israel was lifting the restrictions to ease access to holy sites during the Christmas season.

The roadblocks, which Israel says are necessary to keep out suicide bombers, have choked off West Bank Palestinian towns through most of the 15 months of Palestinian-Israeli fighting.

However, Israel reiterated Friday that it would not let Arafat out of Ramallah to participate in Orthodox Christmas in Bethlehem on Jan. 6. The international community denounced Israel's refusal to let Arafat take part in Latin Christmas celebrations this week. Israel says Arafat must arrest those suspected of assassinating an Israeli Cabinet Minister before he will be allowed to travel freely.

Although prospects for peace talks remained distant, Arafat said in remarks broadcast on Fox TV Friday that the Palestinians "are ready to be very positive" if Israel offers something concrete in talks between top Israeli and Palestinian officials on a possible framework for a peace deal.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia were to resume contacts this weekend, a Palestinian security source said. The two have been discussing a proposal under which Israel would recognize a Palestinian state as a first step in a final peace treaty.

December 2001

Magazine

U.S. and Israel Now Have Iraq In Their Sights (December 31, 2001) Britain's Telegraph Newspaper is well-plugged in with both the Americans and the Israelis, and is helping fan the flames of the likelier than not upcoming collision with Iraq. At the moment the U.S. is short of cruise missiles.

Israelis Preparing The Way for 2002 - Now a Potentially Cataclysmic Year (December 31, 2001) Yasser Arafat remains under town siege in Ramallah, and his personal as well as historical nemesis, Ariel Sharon, continues to attempt to provoke more Palestinian hatred and violence which he will then use to justify still further Israeli military escalations, potentially cataclysmic in the year about to begin.

"We Will Win Nuclear War"! Crisis Escalates Further! (December 31, 2001) As the year turns, not since fourty years ago, not since1962 and the "Cuban Missile Crisis", has the world faced the possibility of an iminent orgastic nuclear war between two major countries.

Now, let's talk about terrorism, shall we? (December 30, 2001) If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes of
September 11, please observe a moment of silence for
the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York,
Washington, DC and Pennsylvania attacks. While we're at it...

"Internationals" Victorious For The Day Over Israeli Army (December 30, 2001) You've got to hand it to these international activists, they are succeeding at the moment at least in drawing attention to what the Israeli occupation is really all about, they are putting their bodies on the line, they have now finally after so many years and provocations begun to organize and demonstrate for real. But there are a few serious problems in this.

India-Pakistan War Brews - Potential Nuclear Conflagration Looms (December 29, 2001) No matter what American and Israeli officials now say in public, at some point the "war against terrorism" as defined in Washington and Jerusalem was likely to begin to quickly expand in unforeseen ways in both the Middle East and the sub-continent.

U.S. INVESTIGATING WHETHER NUKES IN COUNTRY (December 28, 2001) "I wouldn't be the least surprised if there were a nuclear
explosion in Israel or the United States."
Congressman Chris Shays (R-Conn.)
Chairman of the House subcommittee on national security

INDIA, PAKISTAN PREPARE FOR WAR (December 26, 2001) Both India and Pakistan in recent days have deployed substantial combat forces to important strategic areas along their borders and with tension continuing to mount the Indian army has ordered residents in border villages to leave.

Pakistan warns of nuclear conflict with India! (December 25, 2001) As in Palestine, the Kashmir conflict originally resulted from Western policies in the last century. Now both conflicts threaten to explode into wars of mass destruction in this century.

The Terrible State of the Palestinians (December 24, 2001) After all his bluster and threats, Yasser Arafat remains essentially an Israeli prisoner in Ramallah, one of the militarily-surrounded Palestinian Bantustans that Arafat himself helped create when he put his pen to various Israeli schemes for which he received, quite literally, billions of dollars in payoffs and arms which he then distributed to cronies and entourage to keep himself in power.

Holy Land ShowDown - Will He or Won't He? (December 24, 2001) An atmosphere of tension and expectation has descended on Bethlehem as Palestinians wait to see whether their leader, Yasser Arafat, will successfully defy an Israeli ban on his travelling to the town for a highly symbolic Christmas Mass.

Israel Prepares For Arafat's "Walk" or Copter to Bethlehem (December 23, 2001) It's even possible Arafat could tomorrow win this round in what has evolved into a kind of personal Sharon-Arafat political wrestling match. We're all anxiously waiting to see just how this drama is going to unfold Monday; and whether Arafat can even approach the political skill and timing of Mahatma Gandhi.

Arab Regimes Helped Bring Sharon To Power - MER FlashBack (December 23, 2001) It was the Arab client regimes themselves, especially the
Hashemites in Jordan and the Egyptians, who actually helped bring Ariel Sharon
to the pinnacle of power in Israel. This from MER archives four years ago:

"It's a humiliation for the entire Palestinian people" (December 23, 2001) "This is an example of the arrogance of occupation.
It's a humiliation for the entire Palestinian people,
Christians and Muslims... Sharon is playing with
fire -- he wants blood and tears instead of
Christmas carols."

Yasser's Historic Moment Monday To Walk Peacefully Into History (December 22, 2001) As we said the other day, we're all aware that Yasser Arafat's record of doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons in the right way is rather tarnished, to say the least. But even tarnished almost consumed historic figures sometimes have their possible moments of historic redemption.

War Year 2002 - Stage Set for "Transferring" Palestinians, "Jordan is Palestine" (December 22, 2001) If major wars and more "terrorist incidents" break out in the Sub-Continent and elsewhere in the Middle East region, as now seems likely in the weeks and months immediately ahead, that is just what Ariel Sharon and the "right-wing" Israelis -- with at least acquiescence from Barak, Peres and the so-called "left-wing" Israelis -- have been waiting for.

Darkness in the Once Holy Land (December 21, 2001) "The Oslo agreements were a sham... The understanding
on the Palestinian side was that Oslo would eventually
lead to Israeli withdrawal from the territories. In fact,
the accords turned into a state-run land grab of
astounding proportions..."

Arafat Threatens to Walk to Bethlehem - NewsFlash! (December 21, 2001) Just a week ago now MER wrote of the urgent need for Arafat to "do a Gandhi". "Message to Arafat - Do a Gandhi, right now, before it's too late!" was the title of the MER article published last Friday at this time. And it seems MER's impact is even greater than we imagined!

Time to Suspend Israel from the U.N. General Assembly (December 20, 2001) The General Assembly could act seriously today; it has the power. And there is the precedent as well -- South Africa in the days of Apartheid. The U.S. has no veto in the GA; something that under today's conditions, and precisely because of last week's "astounding" Security Council veto, should be acted upon.

"So let's hope the president will resist the siren calls for new wars" (December 20, 2001) Warnings have already come, and in public, from all over. The Germans, the French, the U.N., there's already quite a long list. But the Americans are definitely planning to march forward on their crusade...there are many "phases" already not just planned but in various forms of execution.

Peres Himself "Shudders"; and "Evil" Israeli-Style Unleashed (December 19, 2001) Shimon Peres ought to know. This is hardly the first time the Israelis have been caught at what for most of the world deserve to be categorized as "war crimes." And for every time they have been caught there are ever so many other times that the dastardly things they have done have been successfully hidden from view, so far that is.

Thank You Der Spiegel (December 18, 2001) We've yet to see the full English translation of yesterday's important article by Publisher Rudolf Augstein of Der Spiegel. But right away we can certainly comment that it's about time German intellectuals and journalists realized that precisely because of their past they have a special obligation to stand up against racism and facism and brute militarism -- from whatever quarter it rears its ugly tentacles.

LIES, TRICKS, DECEPTIONS...then and now? (December 17, 2001) Was what the world watched a few days ago, originally broadcast direct from the Pentagon no less, the real OSB and the whole truthful story of the conveniently found and timed tape? Was this just a part of the real but more more complex and convoluted story? Was there a CIA Sting involved as has been reported by the establishment British press in London over the weekend?

Destroying Saddam/Bathist Regime Being Planned by US, Israel (December 17, 2001) When you send a recently retired Marine Corp General and regional Commander to the Middle East as your "Peace Negotiator" it's war not peace you have in mind. But the popular press is ever-so-gullible and compliant of course.

Neighborhood Bully - A Former U.S. Attorney General on American Militarism (December 15, 2001) When I picture a high-ranking government official, I think of someone who is corrupt. I think of a corporate shill. I think of someone who is not a friend to the people of this country. I think of Lord Acton's famous line about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.

Message to Arafat - Do a Gandhi, right now, before it's too late! (December 14, 2001) Palestinian support groups in the US and elsewhere are pathetically weak, terribly lead, and still engaged most of the time in rather juvenile uninformed internal debates about who is who and what is what. But even so, once and awhile there's a good idea circulated in their incestuous and bloated email forums, though there is hardly ever any follow-through in any serious way.

Arafat in Bunker; Israeli Missiles Seek Bin Laden; Propaganda Campaigns Escalate (December 13, 2001) Greatly emboldened because there have not been the kinds of major demonstrations and violent clashes in Arab and Muslim countries that some predicted, the U.S. and Israel have decided to push forward with crushing military power, still more covert CIA actions, and further administrative and financial restrictions worldwide.

Boycott the USA Says Famous Egyptian (December 12, 2001) When Egypt's most popular television commentator, Hamdi Qandil, called for a boycott of U.S. goods, which his government opposes, it got past the censor. But he was stopped from repeating it.

Israel: The 51st State? (December 12, 2001) September 11th, 2001, has become the tragedy of opportunity for Israel; a perfect turning point in which the "war against terrorism" analogy has been fully exploited by Ariel Sharon's radical right-wing government to sustain, even intensify, the horrors of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

What Drives A Bomber to Kill the Innocent Child? MER FLASHBACK (December 11, 2001) I once asked the head of the Lebanese Hizbollah if he could explain to me how the mind of a suicide bomber works. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah was dressed in his black turban and robes. He had formerly been the Hizbollah's military commander in southern Lebanon and from his legions had emerged the first Arab suicide bombers who would - after more than a decade and a half - sap the morale of Israel's retreating army.

"...Symbol of Hatred and Fury of This Filthy War" (December 10, 2001) They started by shaking hands. We said 'Salaam aleikum' - peace be upon you - then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and head.

Robert Fisk Nearly Beaten to Death (December 9, 2001) Robert Fisk is one of the world's preeminent experts about the Middle East and world affairs. He is the longest serving Western correspondent in the region. He is also an extraordinarily courageous person who always conducts himself with great determination, fortitude, and professionalism.

Lies About "Peace" and a "Palestinian State" - Then and Now (December 1, 2001) More than twenty years ago now another American President was promising a complete "settlement freeze" and a "transitional period" leading to a "Palestinian State". The notion that George W. Bush is doing so for the first time, sui generis, is not only blatantly historically fallacious but downright disingenuous.